


Thorin and Bilbo

by Judayre



Series: Pair and Gender Challenge [6]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gender binary is for wimps, Other, challenge writing, tagged in chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judayre/pseuds/Judayre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four different ways Bilbo and Thorin could interact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is [the explanation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1145580/chapters/2319756). If you haven't already read it, please do so.
> 
> First chapter is from the Zoo AU.

"Thorin."

"Bíli," the Dwarf replied, not turning his gaze from the road.

Bilbo hesitated, darting glances at Thorin out of the corner of his eyes. Thorin was quiet, letting him choose his own time, and Bilbo was grateful for it. Finally, he felt he could continue.

"After everything, if we're still alive, what happens to me?"

This time Thorin did turn, just for a moment, to look at him. "What do you want to happen?" he asked when his eyes were back on the road.

That was a very good question and not one Bilbo was really able to answer. But there were a few things he could honestly say. "I don't think I want to go back to the Shire." He had only been gone a few days, but he knew that much. "I don't want to become like my cousins who are just shadows since leaving the Shire."

"And you never shall be," Thorin said, voice firm. "You will always have a home with me and mine. You are my nephew, brother of Fíli and Kíli. Balin has all but adopted you, as has Dori, Ori think you're his best friend. You have nothing to fear. We are all with you."

"I could stay in the he mountain with you?" Bilbo asked, voicing a distant hope he had held deep in his heart.

Thorin took one hand off the wheel and reached out, gripping Bilbo's hand tightly. "Bíli, you will be welcome wherever I am."

The firm, strong hand assured Bilbo and he smiled. "I'm glad."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bell is his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny tiny short from Boarding.
> 
> For once, I know what the other two are going to be! And they will hopefully be better than this.

Thorin hadn't had a home since before he was full grown. There was no place to call home other than Erebor. Not until Belladonna Baggins opened her home to him and made it his. And it was a situation both unfamiliar and comforting to have her smiling face there to greet him every evening.

His Bell was soft and warm. Her ample curves welcomed him. He rested his head on her breast. He curved his arms around her waist. Her thighs opened to let him in. Her lips reached for him. She stroked her fingers through his beard and across his cheeks.

And she spoke words he had never heard from another. He was beautiful. He was dear. He was desirable. He was everything she wanted.

He buried his nose in the curve of her throat and let himself be home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwarves don't have reigning queens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goes with [this short](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1335373/chapters/2861551).

"Well, Master Thorin," Bilbo said as they stopped for their first night of rest.

"Mistress," Thorin snapped, then sneered as the Hobbit drew back in confusion.

"But that means that you're--"

"A woman. Yes, burglar."

The Hobbit frowned. "But I've heard them call you their king. If you're a woman, wouldn't you be a queen?"

Thorin had to keep herself from snarling. She? A queen? A woman who existed to show off the wealth of the kingdom, beautiful but useless? She loved her mother with all her heart, but she saw all that went into being a queen - for Strivís had been queen in all but name once Thrór's wife was dead.

She had seen the beautiful work Strivís had crafted and how her husband and kingdom got all the credit for it. She saw how carefully her mother had put herself together any time she would be seen by any who weren't family - which was all the time, because there were always servants in the palace. She saw how her mother's opinions and thoughts on anything other than the running of the palace and her children had been brushed aside.

Thrailís had been a lovely child, and her father and grandfather had already been planning a match for her when Smaug came. When they were on the road struggling to survive, the idea of a marriage flew from their minds. Thrailís hadn't minded, because marriage and children weren't in her interests. She hadn't hesitated to take the name Thorin and lead her people - remembering what she could of the lessons her mother taught her and the things Frerin never hesitated to chatter at her.

No, Thorin had never wanted to be a queen. She had never wanted to be a symbol of strength that she wasn't allowed to use. Dís took that role, laughing when Thorin expressed regret about it. The exiles needed a reminder of what they had lost, and Dís didn't mind dressing as finely as she could and being gracious even when she wanted to scream.

But Thorin. "No, burglar," she grated out from between clenched teeth. "I am not a queen."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They both have some explaining to do....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been looking forward to writing this since before I started writing this quartet of stories.
> 
> Heavily influenced by [_The Good Earth_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/38858), by The Feels Whale, and [_Carving_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/60633), by sunryder. If I could dedicate a single chapter of a story, this would go to them. It doesn't work that way, though.

"You have some explaining to do."

" _I_? _You_ have some explaining to do."

Thorin glanced over at the children, who were shyly getting to know each other. They both had explaining to do, and with everything that had happened giving the first one was the least he could do.

"Mahal, our creator, hewed us out of the stone that is the bone of the world," he said, giving voice to things that few outsiders ever heard. "And so, in time, we feel the urge to create and go in search of the proper stone, and then he guides our hands with the tools."

There would be questions. There always were when children were told. He decided to cover the most important one. "Usually two are called together and their work on the same stone joins together to form one life. But not always. Dís never had anyone she wanted to carve with."

"And neither did you," Bilbo murmured.

Thorin looked at him again. "I did your share of the carving, after you left me."

"After I left you," Bilbo repeated, bridling again. "After I left with my heart destroyed, _thinking you dead. Why aren't you_?"

An insulting question if he'd really been thinking. But neither of them really were, now that they were together again, so Thorin just answered it. "You left and I thought myself dead. And then... I could not die without seeing what the urge created."

Bilbo didn't answer, and it was wonderful just to sit together in quiet. They both looked over at where the children, with their disparate clothes and manners and their similar shape and color, had started to smile and laugh together as the young did so easily. 

"I left here with my heart broken," Bilbo repeated, voice soft and even now keening with grief. "I left the one I loved more than plants love rain, and when I reached the home I had spent so much time pining for, the emptiness of it turned me into a wild thing. I didn't last more than a week before I had half destroyed the place for not having you in it. And then I planted our child in my garden." 

"Dwarves do not have seed like Men or Hobbits." 

"No," Bilbo agreed. "But I had that lock of your hair." And the child he had brought with him had hair with the same darkness, and even the same white steaks as Thorin's. "And I never had the heart to clean your blood from my handkerchief. Heart's blood, it was, from the wounds on your chest. I combined those with my seed, and it worked well enough. Byrin is certainly made of both of us." 

"Báli loves the delicate living things outside of the mountain," Thorin offered, wanting Bilbo to know the child Thorin had carved for him. "Even this young, I often find him with the weavers, wanting to make fine things." 

Bilbo leaned against him. "That would be your influence," he said tearfully. "The fine things I love are all here." 

Thorin wrapped an arm around him, holding him close. "They are now," he agreed, raising his voice to call out to both of his children. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm using male pronouns for both of them, but it's not really appropriate in either case. Dwarves in this verse don't have gender. They are literally carved from stone and have no need of male and female. Aule created them long before Elves appeared and really had no clue how that procreation thing was meant to go. There is, here, only one third person pronoun in Khuzdul. And once they realized the cultural biases around "he" and "she" they just started using the one when out in the world.
> 
> Hobbits are plants, and like many plants they produce both male and female parts (but they are not self-propagating). Choice of clothes and hair are entirely self decided and don't have to stay the same from day to day. Bilbo mostly sticks with masculine short hair and pants, and so he uses male pronouns.
> 
> The children follow the method of their creation: Báli, who was carved, is genderless and Byrin, who grew in the garden, is both male and female. Thorin refers to Báli as "he" because of the conventions that Dwarves go by. Byrin is too young to really make those decisions and is still in the stage where all children wear unisex clothes and hair styles. As Byrin gets to the tweens and finally the age of majority a primary gender style will emerge.


End file.
